SPIRIT YOU ARE THE BEST CHOICE

WRITER: DAVE BRABHAM JR, YOUTH PASTOR

Have you ever thought about all the choices your children face in life? One day they will choose a college or choose not to attend college, select a person to spend their life with in marriage, decide on a home to raise their family and a career to provide for their children. There is one choice they were not given—the choice of their parents was made by God.

No matter how ill equipped, overwhelmed, or unworthy we feel as parents, we are His choice. There are no children who are mistakes. So now that we have settled that, what do we make of it? If you are anything like me, then you know by now that all children are different and not one came with an instruction manual. It is only by God’s grace that we raise our children and they grow to be healthy and whole adults. The more you listen to “experts” in parenting the less expert they sound. You may even wonder if these people have children. Ironically, here is my “expert advice,” and yes, I have three children. Are you ready for this?

Trust God.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? You probably already know it is not as simple as it sounds. Why not? Because of us, because we are who we are, we are the parents. It is our job to worry about grades, stress over teenage relationships, and need anxiety medication to make it through our children’s adolescence. At least, we think that is our job. Actually, we were not chosen, but called to set an example for our children. Setting an example of trust is the opposite of worry, stress, and anxiety. In fact, one of the simplest and most profound scriptures in the Bible is Philippians 4:6, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done”(NLT).

So the Bible gives us a simple anti-anxiety formula–stop worrying and pray! The biggest problem in modern Christian parenting is we are busy and we don’t take time to pray, or not as much as we need to. So we worry. We replace prayer with stress and anxiety when the Bible says prayer is how we defeat these problems. This is not something you will do once and it will fix the problem; this is a lifestyle. So my “expert advice” is not mine, it is from a great source. It is more like instruction than advice. Here is the promise that is attached to this instruction, found in Philippians 4:7, “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” So a life of prayer is the ultimate antistress solution in any situation. And this certainly applies to raising our kids!